


afterimage

by plingo_kat



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Arthur Morgan's Hat, Dead People, Gen, Post-Chapter 6: Beaver Hollow (Red Dead Redemption 2), Supernatural Elements, idk if major character death applies when he's already dead but oh well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:29:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29598339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plingo_kat/pseuds/plingo_kat
Summary: “I’m gonna break off for a bit when we reach Valentine,” John said abruptly. Sadie and Abigail both looked up with similar evaluating stares: one disappointed, one hurt. “I need... I’m gonna go back and bury him.”
Relationships: John Marston & Arthur Morgan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





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**Author's Note:**

> This _started_ as an idea where Arthur was a ghost haunting John, anchored to the world by his hat. I wasn't quite able to spin the concept out as much as it deserved, but... *shrugs* I'm just writing my feelings, I guess.
> 
>  **Warning(s)** : John has nightmares and unintentionally hurts (bruises) Abigail, description of a dead body.

The dreams started two weeks after John stumbled down the mountain.

He woke up sweating, gasping, Abigail’s voice saying something -- Abigail's voice high and tight, saying his name, “John, _John_ , let go” -- and John realized he was gripping her arm hard enough his joints ached, hard enough to leave bruises.

“A--” he started, choked, and wasn’t sure what name was set to come out of his mouth. Opened his hand like he was burned. Groped gracelessly next to him for the cool leather of Arthur’s hat, the rough tie of rope around it, grounding himself. “Abigail, I’m sorry.”

“It was a bad dream,” Abigail said, trying to be soothing. Cradling her wrist where dark marks were already blooming on her skin. More of them. “It’s not real, John.”

“Real enough for me to hurt you.” The words scraped out his raw throat, a harsh truth. “Not even the first time. Abigail, I can’t share a bed with you no more. Not for now, at least. It ain’t safe.”

“John--”

“No!” Abigail bore his harsh exclamation without flinching, nerves made of tempered steel. More steady than John was, at the moment. John continued, softer. “No. I ain’t gonna risk waking up with my hand around your neck next time. Or worse.”

 _Jack_. The name went unspoken.

“Oh, John.” Abigail reached out and ran her fingers through John’s hair, lank as it was with sweat. On Abigail’s other side Jack made a noise and shifted under the blankets. “All right. All right.”

“”m gonna.” He slid out of their bedroll and tugged a coat over his union suit. Slung a rifle over his shoulder. “Just gonna grab a smoke. You go back to sleep.”

His hands were shaky as he shoved his feet into his boots and struck a match. Sadie glanced at him out of the corner of her eye where she was on watch but left him alone; she understood grief and nightmares both. Besides, they had little to say to each other. Sadie had all the softness burned out of her those months ago back in Colter, couldn’t seem to get it back. Didn’t want to. She tended to avoid Abigail and Jack when she could, treated them with a kind sort of indifference when she couldn’t. Took her cue from Arthur and kept her distance from John until close to the end. Different now, though, given it was just the few of them.

Arthur. God, John missed him. His fingers raised automatically to touch the brim of Arthur’s hat on his head, awkwardly fitted. Arthur’s head was just the slightest bit bigger than John’s and the damn thing tended to list drunkenly to the left unless John adjusted it constantly. Off-kilter.

He’d been dreaming of Arthur, John was pretty sure, although he couldn’t quite remember. Pain and blood and panic like dark water closing over his head, making it hard to breathe. There was a shadow behind him -- behind _them_ \-- that John was trying to drag Arthur away from, but Arthur reached back for it, coughing. A huffing like a big animal.

That wasn’t how it happened. John had left Arthur there, doubled over himself, stripped down to just his gun. No horse, no supplies, no hat. Just a sick man, dying.

John _ached_ to go back.

He took a drag of his cigarette, holding the smoke in his lungs. Exhaled. Watched the moonlit wood through the resulting hazy cloud, all smeared and wavering like a sun mirage. Not too far away an owl hooted.

John moved and the hat tilted. Damnit. When he reached up to straighten it he felt something wet, and for a terrifying moment was sure it was blood.

But, no. No. The trees were damp, was all, from a brief afternoon shower, and some water had dripped onto the hat. The liquid on his fingers was clear. He shook it off with a convulsive move of his hand, tipping the hat again. Shit.

No way was he going to get any more sleep that night. He took a step toward their designated lookout point, heading over to see if Sadie wanted to trade off, and caught a flash of movement at the corner of his eye. A shadow through the trees.

It didn’t reappear. In the end John dug out another bedroll and laid with his eyes open until morning.

*

The nightmares didn’t get better, but they didn’t get worse either.

Instead it was everything else that seemed to deteriorate, Abigail becoming snappy and restless while Jack quieted, hiding behind Abigail’s skirts when he wasn’t throwing the occasional temper tantrum. Sadie started looking strained around the eyes.

John... Well, John could feel himself buckling under the pressure. He wasn’t meant to hold people together, not like Arthur or Hosea or Dutch. Arthur had left him with a whopping three thousand dollars secreted away in his satchel, a frankly terrifying amount of money that their little band immediately split between them for safer carrying. They sent Tilly off with her own share when they passed near Emerald Station, a starter seed for her new life wherever she chose to go. John had no earthly idea how Arthur managed to keep that much money secret from Dutch and the rest of the camp, nor how he managed to collect it all. He’d put his share of money from jobs into camp funds near religiously, had paid out of what John _knew_ was his own pocket for camp upgrades and resupplies.

 _Goddamnit, Arthur,_ thought John. Why the hell had he gone along with Dutch’s insane plans when he had more than enough money to see them safe all on his lonesome?

John touched Arthur’s hat again. Loyalty, of course. If Arthur had three _million_ dollars he still would have been there for Dutch, for the gang. Although if they had that much money maybe Dutch wouldn’t have gone crazy in the first place.

“I’m gonna break off for a bit when we reach Valentine,” John said abruptly. Sadie and Abigail both looked up with similar evaluating stares: one disappointed, one hurt. “I need... I’m gonna go back and bury him.”

“You think it’s cooled down enough to be safe?” said Sadie, skeptical. “You’re a pretty distinctive man, Marston.”

“Too distinctive for Valentine,” John deflected. “Abigail never stirred up trouble there and you weren’t really riding with us then, the three of you ought to be safe to stay for awhile. I’ll come find you when I’m done.”

“You think two women and a boy alone aren’t going to stand out?”

“Less than a wanted outlaw with real unique scars on his face, that’s for sure. You’ve got enough money. Sadie, please. Take care of them for me.”

“If you think you can make my decisions for me, John Marston,” began Abigail, but Jack whimpered. She stopped as if shot. John took his chance.

“Stability will do Jack good,” he argued. “I’ll be careful, but Abigail -- Sadie -- you know I’m no good to be around right now. Reckon I’ll go get my head on straight, come back ready to be the, the man you deserve.”

Sadie made a noise, neither positive or negative, just an acknowledgement. Abigail stared at him for a long while, silent, before dipping her head in a slow nod.

“You better come back, y’hear,” she said, choked up. “Promise me, John Marston.”

John touched her, gently, above the bruises still ringing her wrists. “I promise.”

*

Out on his own, the dreams changed.

He left the majority of his money with Abigail since he planned to keep off the roads and sleep rough, traveling mostly in the early morning and late evening when he was near civilization. His rest schedule became all but nonexistent; he set up camp in secretive hollows and napped sitting up with his gun close to hand, got used to squinting in the dim light of the moon as much as the bright light of day while his new horse -- Alexander, named as a compromise toward his own penchant of using real, actual normal names, and Arthur’s choices of history storybook heroes -- trotted along the path.

Whenever John closed his eyes he still saw blood and shadows, but occasionally there was the liquid shine of gold. Like whisky. Like Arthur’s hair, if the sun hit it just right.

Arthur’s hat started to smell like John. They’d sewed padding into the interior so it would fit John right, and he wore it during his every waking moment, sweating into it, touching it, even sleeping with it draped over his face so he could pretend Arthur was still with him when he woke up, just for a second. Smelling cigarettes and cordite and sweat and leather and a whiff of horse. Smelling Arthur.

John himself didn’t smell too much off from Arthur, he figured, being as they were both gunslinging outlaws that spent a lot of time in the wilderness. But there _was_ something different now that he’d been wearing the hat for over a month, a sharper scent to the sweat-smell, maybe a bit less horse. He’d never been as horse-crazy as Arthur.

The weather got colder as he moved north and winter rolled in. Skirting widely south and east of Fort Wallace gave him some reprieve, but he had to pull out more and more of his layers of clothing as he approached Arthur’s final resting place. The land seemed echoing and empty, signs of human life sparse, the vestiges he did find old and faded like a sun-bleached photograph. Broken branches, piled up. A couple of discarded cans and bottles. The haze of Annesburg’s mining industry was barely a smudge on the horizon when days were particularly clear.

He stopped for Susan first. To his shame he hadn’t even thought of her until he was a days ride from Beaver Hollow, too consumed by thoughts of finding Arthur’s crow-pecked corpse, or perhaps even worse: no corpse at all, the Pinkertons gone up and retrieved it to display like a grisly prize, a hunted and stuffed outlaw.

He approached cautiously, wary of lawmen and Murfrees both, but the swirling fog settled in the Hollow revealed no signs of human life. He found the remains of the camp wagons, bullet-scarred, their contents spilled and scattered across the dirt, dark stains where bodies once laid. Nobody in a dress; no body at all fresh enough to Miss Grimshaw. She must have been retrieved with the rest of the Pinkertons.

He set up a headstone anyway, at the foot of _her_ wagon, so she could stand one last watch over her camp and her belongings. He finished just as the first rays of the morning sun broke through the trees and lit up the deer like a spotlight.

It was a huge stag, shoulders standing even with his own, antlers adding more than two feet to its height. It was no more than a body’s length away from him, frozen as John looked at it, limmed in gold. Time slowed. John was hyperaware of the silence of the forest, the glisten of dew on the leaves of the trees; the stag’s nostrils flared, and John watched the muscles in its shoulders bunch in slow motion before it sprang away in a blur and the world came rushing back.

He blew out a breath, heart hammering. He was done here. As he walked away, he hoped he never saw Beaver Hollow again.

*

John dreamed of hands.

They were on his head, cradling his skull and the back of his neck like he cradled the precious item in his arms. Mud seeped cold through his pants to his knees but he ignored it, curling his elbows and shoulders around, hunching, protecting his heart. Blood dripped from his lips.

He spat, and missed. Droplets of blood hit the brim of Arthur’s hat. The keen ripped its way out of his throat, repentant, but it was too late -- the blood had set, staining the leather -- he raised his head, pushing against the hands until they gave way to rest along his jaw, thumbs rubbing at the wetness along his cheekbones, and his eyes burned at the shine and shadow of gold antlers.

He woke gasping. The sky was a greyish-pink, perhaps half an hour out from dawn. Arthur’s hat was upside-down in the dirt by his bedroll and John snatched it up. Looked it over. No bloodstains. He jammed it on his head and kicked himself free of cloth and canvas until he was standing out in the cold air in his shirtsleeves, shivering.

Time to find Arthur.

It felt like he’d scoured half the mountain; he had the idea that he should have _known_ where Arthur was, where John had left him, but when he’d last been here he’d been wounded and in pain, in the dark, fleeing for his life. The woods now, quiet but for the singing and barks of wildlife, were wholly unfamiliar. Yesterday before he rode away to make camp he’d found the opening to the Beaver Hollow cave system and figured he’d trace his way to Arthur’s final resting place in the morning. One last night’s reprieve.

Tearing down camp felt like it took no time at all even though he tried to move slow. Soon Alexander was saddled up and ready to ride. As he hauled himself up in the saddle he wondered how Abigail and Jack were doing.

“You and me, boy.” He patted Alexander’s neck. “I got this.”

He left Alexander hitched to a pine at the border where greenery petered out to reveal bare rock, half climbing, half scrambling his way upward. Wondered as he panted in the thin air how Arthur had done this, sick as he was, how even so clearly dying he’d been strong enough to shoot and ride and haul John to his feet. To save him.

As he climbed the sky brightened, orange and and purple, shading toward blue. He reached Arthur’s body just as the sun broke the horizon, blinding him with its light.

...No. It was the stag.

The stag shone gold, standing over Arthur’s lumpy shadow; its legs bisected the horizon, emitting rays of light that fell upon John like fire. A deep grunting huff emerged from its throat as it took a step toward John, stuck frozen and flinching.

He thought he must still be dreaming.

John’s skin felt hot. The stag _was_ the sun, all set to burn him up as it stepped closer and closer, until John had to look up at it, the radiant outline of its nose, the spears of its antlers. It dipped its head and took the brim of Arthur’s hat in its teeth.

Fury bubbled up in John like rancid rotgut. He fought to move, to snatch back Arthur’s hat -- _his_ hat, that Arthur had given to him for safekeeping -- through air thick as molasses, while the stag held the hat in its mouth, light shining around it like an eclipse. He’d just managed to get his fingers nearly brushing leather when the stag vanished.

John staggered, then fell to his knees. The hat lay on the stone halfway between him and Arthur’s body, already dry and weatherworn, flesh picked at and shrunken by animals and time. Arthur was facing east, watching the sunrise.

The sob tore out of his throat like he was gutshot. He curled over like he did in his dream, crawling the two paces of space to hunch over all he had left of Arthur that he could carry with him: a fading smell and a re-fitted headpiece, cracked and worn.

 _You take care of your family now, y’hear?_ said the ghost of Arthur’s memory on the wind.

 _I promise,_ John thought back.

When he looked up again, Arthur’s body was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> I got so frustrated when Dutch was all "We NEED more MONEY" when I had a cool several thousand just... there, ready to be used. Hahaha. Still think that narratively it would have made sense for all your cash to stay gone after Guarma, but I can see how it would piss people off. Also: I forgot John got Arthur's journal, whoops.
> 
> I wanted to draw the last dream John had but I sketched it out and it looked terrible, so you can just... have that imagery described in word form, I guess.


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